KDE or GNOME

Just had a thought. The mag ran Paul and Graham's GNOME/KDE rant, but we didn't have a similar affair on here.

So here goes.

KDE looks better, and for some reason this counts even if you spend hours making Gnome look and act like KDE (I tried!).

The Gnome development effort appears to be built upon the idea of 'Keep it simple stupid' and yet the idea that they would remove the Path bar in the standard file dialogue, and have the file manager spawn window after window when drilling down for a file seems completely contrary to this. Weirdly, I am really attracted to some of the Windecos Gnome has...

On that token, though, it seems a little bizarre for many talented coders to duplicate the work of many other talented coders to build an integrated office suite when OO.o does the job better than KOffice and, thanks to the effort of OO.o/KDE crossover people, looks completely integrated anyway.

I'm going to have to say KDE on this one. I do like Xfce as a light-weight window manager with nice simple features, but because of the limitations it has I can't get used to using it as an alternative to KDE or Gnome. It's ok for a server when I just need the occassional terminal or file browser, but for things more than that I can't get used to it.

I do like Gnome, but for the quirks mentioned by Andy, it's sometimes too awkward to use.

"On that token, though, it seems a little bizarre for many talented coders to duplicate the work of many other talented coders to build an integrated office suite when OO.o does the job better than KOffice and, thanks to the effort of OO.o/KDE crossover people, looks completely integrated anyway."

IMO, it's good to have an alternative office suite -- it gives OOo a bit of competition. And KOffice's apps start in a reasonable amount of time, whereas OOo (even with version 2) is comically slow to start on two year-old boxes

I've tried to get on with Gnome, really... but KDE just feels more natural to me. Especially KDE 3.1 which I still use on my SuSE 8.2 boxes at work and which I prefer to whatever version is on the SuSE 9.2 box at home.
Not that Gnome is bad... I've used far worse window managers than that ! Some of the earlier versions of DECWindows, for starters... or the horrible excuse for a piece of software that used to sit on the original Apollo workstations (before HP saved them).
But Linux is all about choice... having a choice of window managers means you can always find a solution to your particular needs, whatever your preferences or hardware... even twm has it's uses !

I'm not keen on GNOME at all. Maybe it's the "Foot". Maybe it's the "Home" logo. Maybe it's Nautilus, or the fact that last time I used it, it was hell to get non-GNOME programs onto the menu. Whilst it is so easy to get GNOME apps onto KDE menus. This may have improved in later versions, but I can't be bothered to find out now.

I have played with the other Window managers, Window Maker is horrible, ICE-WM is OK, XFCE4.2 is very good, Fluxbox is OK if it is set up by your distro so that you can find programs, but ultimately I always return to KDE.

All the "overheads" for KDE end up adding into my other desktops, because I can't get by without Konqueror, K3B, et al.

But the real clincher is that wonderful application gtk-qt-engine. It makes your GTK2 apps look like KDE apps (well it makes them try hard to anyway) and as for GTK1 apps, well I'm using KMyMoney now instead of GnuCash, as I only ever used a fraction of its features I just want to keep running totals and lists of transactions and KMM more than does the job.

No matter what desktop I try, I keep ending up using KDE again. I'm hooked!

Mind you, I'm only a recent convert from fluxbox/icewm. KDE 3.3 was the first release that was just about snappy and responsive enough for me. I'm now running the even snappier KDE 3.4 (compiled with -f*visibility*). Why didn't I stick with a lighter window manager? KDE just has too many addictively useful features, not least of which is Konqueror.

I liked GNOME 1.2, but that was the last version I used in earnest. Since then it seems to have become less (easily) configurable, and far more difficult to build from source. I'd give GNOME the edge in looks, but looks aren't everything!

I voted for KDE because it's easy to change the colours and other aspects of the desktop. It's very pretty. I do like gnome though but I find it more complicated to use. I like window maker as well, and Black box. It's good that there's a choice of desktops instead of just the one like in Windows.

MS might do a similar thing one day, but they'll only have a choice of one, of course

People go for the manager that is available, especially when they first come to a box ... then they get used to it . so i tend to view this 'two Linux window managers' stuff to be just so much a smurf.

Notice how kde config files look very much like win ini files. And i wonder where the idea of the task bar came from ... Hasn't anyone heard of 'M4'

If UNIX is a tool box, of choice, then the distros arn't doing UNIX. And Linux should never be just a more stable version of Windows. Some cages can be all a glitter. and discovery is always freedom. Dare to move on ...

ps: Can't help but notice that the 'poll' choices arn't in alpha order

Anyway, I think the idea that a desktop is a little familiar to what 95 per cent of the computing world have experienced is a good thing. Here's another fine Socratic dialogue to explain:

Boromir: I've just discovered this fantastic new Golden Ring. It can do everything the other Golden Rings can do, except it doesn't call down wraithes as soon as you shove it on a digit.
Farimir: Great, can I put it on my finger?
Boromir: No, you must wear it on your epiglotis.
Farimir: Why?
Boromir: It's just a better way of doing it.

And on.

Poll choices would have been in alphabetical order if I'd thought about it more, but I rushed a little bit. Please feel free to read them in any order you like.

KDE has tabbed file browsing, you can copy 100's of files in one go and not lose 10 a long the way, I just get stuff done quicker in KDE than gnome (nautilus file manager gets right on my tits after a few mins). The program applets, like the file browser dialogues are the SAME, not different for EVERY app.

Gnome, AFAIK (based on usage of 2.10):
- No tabbed file browsing.
- No transfer rate/speed shown when moving/copying files.
- Nautilus is quite slow at re-drawing directories, compared to konqueror (why
has gnome got this mith that its _faster_ than kde).
- FTP was slow to react when changing , 10-15 seconds as opposed to 1 second
in konq on same server).
- Load times of some components slow, ie console compared to konsole.
- Nice gtk/gnome based apps: Gimp, AbiWord + Gnumeric (far better than kword
and kspread), Audacity, PgAdmin, Gaim, XChat, Evolution, Sylpheed.